Running Wind Sprints

When I played basketball in high school, my least favourite part of practise was running wind sprints. Essentially, I ran the length of the basketball court as hard as I could as many times as I could before collapsing like a Jenga tower in a pool of sweat.

Wind sprints were great for getting into game shape; however, they had little to do with actually playing basketball.

Preparing for your next meeting is running wind sprints. Rembember, though running wind sprints during your meeting won't help you win and may actually hurt your cause.

In polite terms this is called "info dumping." Blowing through your prepared statement while your meeting participants sit stunned, waiting for you to take a breath and say something that they actually care about.

To win show up in the best shape, but don't spend your time running wind sprints, play your whole game. 

We are all in sales

Repeat after me, "we are all in sales." 

No matter if you are public relations practitioner, geophysicist, or dentist, sales is part of your day, every day. Unless you have everyone you know do whatever you ask without question (and if you do, I'm jealous), you have to sell our thoughts to other people. 

Sales is pretty simple (not easy, simple). Just ask a lot of questions, listen and ask more questions. No one is truly satisfied with the status quo so you will eventually ask the question that will uncover a hole that you can fill.

"The" thing is

How many times a day do you use "the" in your communications? How often do you have to explain what "the" means afterward?

Unless there is shared knowledge between you and the person to whom you are speaking, "the" can casue confusion and conflict (e.g. "I got you 'the' book." "Yes, but not 'the' book" I wanted). 

Communicating your thoughts clearly will increase understanding, retention, and action on the part of your targets (e.g. increasing chances your traget will buy your product or idea).

Hello Canada, and friends reading around the world

Welcome to Knox Talk. With apologies to Foster Hewitt, I plan to use this space to share my thoughts on language, marketing, and sales - encounters with retail sales people will appear regularly here.

Until I get rolling, I plan on posting about once per week. If I come up with something that I really, really want to share, maybe twice.

This space is only as good as the thoughts posted. Post your thoughts regularly and I will do my best to respond swiftly. As usual, anything I deem sexist, racist, homophobic, or generally intolerant will be deleted immediately.

I look forward to many wonderful conversations.

Can I help you?

"Can I help you?" is a default question. It's a wall we are trained to put up when we want to give the impression of helpfulness (e.g. retail sales people). Seth Godin wrote a great post on defaults, which you can read at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/rethinking-defa.html

Think about the last time you asked or were asked "can I help you?" I bet the response was "no." That's a default response to a default question.

What if, in a retail setting, you were asked, "what are you looking for today?" Your response could be equally dismissive (e.g. "nothing, just killing time") or the sales person could uncover a hidden want (e.g. "I want to replace my pair of Rockport dress shoes").

Do you ask default questions or do you ask "discover" questions that uncover hidden needs  that make you more valuable as a colleague or supplier (e.g. your co-worker is clueless with Excel, your client has a big event coming up)? Who do you think has more value in the eyes of colleagues and clients?